The vice-president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, made a statement this Saturday (3), calling for the immediate freedom of captured President Nicolás Maduro by United States military personnel after bombings against the country.
Rodríguez said that Venezuela will not return to being a colony and will resist the onslaught of the North American government. According to her, the only legitimate president is Nicolás Maduro.
“We demand the immediate release of President Nicolás Maduro, the only president of Venezuela, and his wife, Cilia Flores. If there is one thing that the Venezuelan people and this country are absolutely certain of, it is that we will never be slaves, we will never be a colony of any empire”, said Delcy on national radio and TV.
Delcy’s speech took place minutes after the end of United States President Donald Trump’s press conference, in which he stated that Washington would govern the country South American until a “safe transition”, admitting that North American companies would explore Venezuelan oil.
The country’s vice president participated in the Nation’s Defense Council, with the presence of the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, the Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, and the president of the Superior Court of Justice (TSJ), Caryslia Rodríguez, among other authorities.
Delcy stated that Maduro was “kidnapped” at around 1:58 am this Saturday and reinforced the government’s position that the action is an attempt by the US to gain control over the Caribbean country’s natural resources “under false pretexts”.
The vice president added that she activated, by decree signed by Maduro, all organs of the Venezuelan State to protect the territory against the United States invasion.
“All of Venezuela’s national power has been activated. We have a sacred duty to safeguard our national independence, our sovereignty and our territorial integrity, which were brutally attacked in the early hours of this morning,” said the president.
Delcy called on all Venezuelan powers and organizations to remain calm to “face it, together, in perfect national unity. May this police-military-popular fusion become a single body and let us emerge in this wonderful stage of defending our sovereignty, our national independence.”
The vice president thanked the expressions of solidarity from countries around the world and highlighted that today it was Venezuela, but tomorrow it could be any other nation.
“What they did to Venezuela today they can do to anyone. This brutal use of force to break the will of the people can be done to any country”, he commented.
Understand
The United States attack against Venezuela marks a new episode of direct interventions by Washington in Latin America. The last time the United States invaded a Latin American country was in 1989, in Panama, when the US military kidnapped then-president Manuel Noriega, accusing him of drug trafficking.
Just as they did with Noriega, the United States accuses Maduro of leading an alleged Venezuelan De Los Soles cartel, without presenting evidence. Experts in international drug trafficking question the existence of this cartel.
Donald Trump’s administration was offering a $50 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest.
For critics, the action is a geopolitical measure to distance Venezuela from global adversaries of the United States, such as China and Russia, in addition to exerting greater control over the country’s oil, which owns the largest proven oil reserves on the planet.
